Insights from Neal A. Maxwell regarding the book “C. S. Lewis, the Man and the Message,” under the title “Insights on Discipleship”:
THE KIND INVITATION FROM DEAN Robert Millet for me to participate in this symposium came many months ago. My health made accepting this invitation problematic. So I am especially grateful to be here. I come to you hoping to contribute though not in robust condition.
There are so many different dimensions of C. S. Lewis and his works. For instance there is Lewis’s ready wit, one of the lesser known examples of which was reported by Carolyn Keefe: “Lewis himself was not above the deliberate ploy. . . . The occasion was a dinner party. The main dish was . . . the blood and guts of a sheep. Lewis was seated next to a Portuguese dignitary who, while partaking . . . remarked that he felt like a gastronomic Columbus.” ‘The comparison is wayward in your case,’ remarked Lewis ‘Why not a vascular da Gama?’ “1
It would be appropriate in this setting, as others will do, to speak about the various theological touching points between Lewis’s belief’s and the beliefs of many of us today. Instead, I have chosen to talk about the insights and contributions of C. S. Lewis concerning how exacting Christian discipleship really is. Tony Kimball, a friend of many of us here, wrote recently:
When Lewis wrote, “The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and his compulsion is our liberation” (C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life)
[New York: Harcourt, Brace and company, 1955], p. 229), he affirmed he understood the absolute nature of the commitment required of a follower of Jesus Christ and he accepted that “yoke” willingly.2
The journey of discipleship and the yoke to be born are rigorous, enough so that every encouragement is to be appreciated and every insight is precious. We are invited by Jesus,”Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me” (Matthew 11:29). In my opinion, so far as discipleship is concerned, this is the only way we really learn. Therefore, while it is not yet doctrine for which I look to Lewis, I find this depiction of discipleship especially articulate and helpful. The yield from Lewis in this respect is abundant.
I share the following examples of C.S. Lewis on discipleship while realizing that each of you has your own motivating collection.
Life’s disclosures about the deficiencies in our individual discipleship are seldom convenient, hence I seem to recall C. S. Lewis saying that if you want to find out if there are any rats in the cellar, then fly the cell door open suddenly! Whether it is the suddenness of the cell door or the routine disclosures of deficiencies amid seemingly humdrum daily life, we still need to be shown our shortcomings. It is in this connection that faith in our individual immortality is so vital, since it underscores our personal accountability as well as our personal possibilities, yet such faith today has receded in so many, just as Matthew Arnold wrote of in his “Dover Beach.”
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating to the breath. . . . Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world
This decline in such specific faith is much more repaid since Arnold’s time. Certainly there is a lack of “faith unto repentance”. (Alma 34:15), which causes many to avoid the demands of developmental discipleship. Likewise the nature of our faith in God and His purposes clearly determines how we view ourselves and others. Lewis’s words of perspective are loud and clear: “There are no ordinary people. [We] have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations—these are mortal and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, marry, snub, and exploit.
Furthermore, since discipleship occurs in a tight mortal time frame, it is all the more a rigorous and ongoing developmental journey. No wonder Lewis stressed our need to persist: “Now there are a many good things which would not be worth bothering about if I were going to live only seventy years, but which I had better bother about very seriously if I’m going to live forever. Perhaps my bad temper or my jealously are gradually getting worse—so gradually that the increase in seventy years will not be very noticeable. But it might be absolutely hell in a million years.”4
No wonder Christian discipleship assumes and requires a loving, tutorial God. His relationship with His children is one in which He truly seeks to have us, attribute by attribute, become more like Him and His Son, Jesus Christ. Such is a far different view of God than that held by many, as Lewis trenchantly observed: “The Life-force is sort of tame God. You can switch it on when you want, but it will not bother you. All the thrills of religion and none of the cost. Is the Life-Force the greatest achievement of wishful thinking the world has yet seen?”5
And continuing: “We want, in fact, not so much a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in heaven—senile benevolence who, as they say, liked to see young people enjoying themselves, and whose plan for the universe was that might be truly said at the end of each day, ‘a good time was had by all.’ “6
Our knowing sufficiently the character and the purposes of God thus becomes exceedingly important. No wonder the Prophet Joseph counseled, “If men do not comprehend the character of God, they do not comprehend themselves.”7 Thus, striving to develop the godly attributes becomes a supernal quest which requires coming to understand the character of God. Illustratively, Lewis advised: “If God is love, He is by definition, something more than mere kindness. And it appears, from all the records, that though he has often rebuked us and condemned us, He has never regarded us with contempt. He has paid us the intolerable compliment of loving us, in the deepest, most tragic, most inexorable sense.”8 ~~ This is from a book titled ‘C.S.Lewis, ‘The Man and the Message’ (Multiple contributors) (Salt Lake City: Book craft: 1999) p. 8-11
